This soft and poetic composition by Moreau depicts a semi-nude male protagonist holding a lute with a tri-color frame; a winged goddess in red drapery is guiding his hand on the cords from behind

The young man is Hesiod, the Greek poet believed to have lived around the 7th century B.C. and author of the oldest religious literature in the history of Greece known as the Theogony, which presents the genealogy and stories of the gods passed down through ancient myths

Theogony opens with an invocation: “To start with, let’s sing the praise of the Muses, queens of Mount Helicon, the grand and divine mountain”

Hesiod then narrated the circumstances of his calling: The Muses visited him when he was letting his cattle graze on the slopes of Mount Helicon. The goddesses gave him a branch of laurel leaves and told him to sing the stories of the gods immortal

(Hesiod’s father owned a small piece of land at the foot of Mount Helicon where the poet grew up; the location is about 100 kilometers northwest of Athens and celebrated in Greek mythology)

In this painting by Moreau, Hesiod is listening attentively to the muse. The physical contact between the two may refer to the ancient belief that the poet was thought to be possessed by divinity and became an interpreter and mouthpiece of the latter

In the background is a rocky hill topped with a Greek temple beneath an azure sky. Hesiod wears a laurel crown and the muse is carrying a golden sword on her back; on the ground is a shield covered with flowers